Munchausen syndrome by internet

thorsoak

An interesting article today in the Daily Rail :- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155831/Blogger-exposes-woman-tricked-hundreds-people-weaving-web-fictional-social-network-accounts-11-years.html

This could well apply to one or two of the threads that have appeared (and disappeared) from here recently!

gunsandbanjos

There was a lady on the flylady thread last year(?) who very much fitted the Munchausen profile, she was found out by other people on the thread and disappeared very quickly afterwards!!

tea_lover

Interesting article, I saw that the other day and it definitely fits a few posters here!

I used to post on a support forum for a medical condition. This was a good few years ago before we really knew much about 'trolls'. One girl had us all fooled for months. After a few months she said she'd had to have an emergency hysterectomy when an operation went wrong. We all felt so sorry for her. A few weeks after that she posted as her husband, saying there'd been complications and she was in intensive care! I can remember praying for her on Christmas day, and being really worried about whether she'd pull through.

I have no idea how she got found out but it was all a pack of lies. Very elaborate lies.

euronorris

Interesting article. Unfortunately, with the internet, it's not really something we can get 100% away from, as it's so easy for them to do.

pink68

I knew a lady on another site who got married, had two children, emigrated to australia and built her own house including a soundproof room for her... um...'hobby' of being a 'mistress'. We heard all about the births and what a wonderful man her hubs was and every little detail of their life.

Turned out it was a male tax inspector from manchester..........

:rotfl:

carolan78

When I was pregnant with DD I used to use bounty and we had a woman pretending to be pregnant and have all kinds of catastrophes in her life. She was found out eventually and got what for from a bunch of hormonal females but from what I remember sites like that seem to draw them like locust, probably the same with this forum.

I know take what I read with a pinch of salt offer advice where I can just incase and move on with my day.

BugglyB

carolan78 wrote: »

When I was pregnant with DD I used to use bounty and we had a woman pretending to be pregnant and have all kinds of catastrophes in her life. She was found out eventually and got what for from a bunch of hormonal females but from what I remember sites like that seem to draw them like locust, probably the same with this forum.

I know take what I read with a pinch of salt offer advice where I can just incase and move on with my day.

I think thats absolutely the right attitude, I hate it when you see posts like 'I woke up worrying about you this morning' or 'please let me know you're ok I'm really sick about it'. At that point I think people should stop using forums as really you shouldn't let it affect your emotional wellbeing.

Person_one

carolan78 wrote: »

When I was pregnant with DD I used to use bounty and we had a woman pretending to be pregnant and have all kinds of catastrophes in her life. She was found out eventually and got what for from a bunch of hormonal females but from what I remember sites like that seem to draw them like locust, probably the same with this forum.

I know take what I read with a pinch of salt offer advice where I can just incase and move on with my day.

Pregnancy seems to be a common theme for this kind of thing, probably because it gets such an emotional response.

I'm on another forum where the same 'troll' came back with two different identities, one was pregnant with twins after a bondage game went wrong :eek: and another posted about losing her baby at a late stage of pregnancy but was posting minute by minute updates when she was supposed to be in hospital.

Some can be amusing, but the emotional leech ones where they play with other people's emotions and manipulate people's good intentions do annoy me.

patchwork_cat

I think it isn't just about illness. I think Munchausen's specifically deals with illness, doesn't it?

As some have said there are other attention seekers.

There was one on the frugal thread a while ago that I am sure was one. She had moved to a semi derelict house with 3 small children, her husband died within 3 months of moving in, so they were living in a shell, then she discovered she was pregnant with triplets.

I just don't know if she was real but her story read like a soap! I know others believed her. I never found out!

scooby088

I use this site as sometimes I get some very good tips, but what I have especially on the part of the forum the amount of alternate usernames loads of excuses like don't want OH to see as he will know i am talking about our relationship to strangers. Somehow i think these people are living in a fantasy world to actually think we give a damn.

Hermia

I have had my suspicions of a few people I have seen on forums over the years. On one forum I used to go to there was a woman who claimed she had a seriously ill child, but there was so many holes in the story. If you are going to lie at least try and remember what you have said! I remember once she claimed the child had had a fit and was turning blue. She claimed she was too distressed to call an ambulance. Another woman on the forum who lived in the same town said she would call the ambulance for her and the mother suddenly claimed the child was better..!

One of my pet hates on forums is the emotionally unstable drama queens who are ALWAYS in the middle of a crisis. I used to belong to an online book group and there was one women who would post a woe is me account of her day every evening. The conversation would then always just revolve around her for the rest of the evening. I think she was telling the truth (I got the impression she was just very flakey), but I got annoyed that she felt she had a right to be the centre of attention all the time (she didn't like it if anyone else posted that they had had a bad day etc).